Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Art created by an artist living, depicting, or experiencing city life and culture, about structures and modalities. Urban Art in its rawest form is graffiti, but also murals, human-imagined creation, displayed across the built environment.
Los Angeles comes alive this November and December, sponsored by SoCal 350 Climate Action, in calling for global climate agreements at the upcoming UN conference in Paris. This includes the Global Climate March (Nov 29) at L.A. City Hall, the Vision L.A. Climate Action Arts Festival (Nov 30 to Dec 11), the California Nurses Association Climate Convergence (Dec 3) at Pershing Square and Building Blocks Against Climate Change (Dec 12) along Wilshire Blvd.
This is the first post in a series where I present the case for Geo-Fauvism, a growing movement of wild earth inspiration in art, literature, music and design. Taking off from the early 20th Century French art “Fauvists” or “Wild Beasts,” these cross-disciplinary creations respond to and react against the collapse of global environmental systems, the destruction of indigenous earth-based societies, and a narrowing of cultural opportunities in the mainstream corporatized media. Geo-Fauvists create to reconnect with the wild and heal humanity’s rift with the landscape, building a new community based on integration with the ecosystem.
Punk Rock: the thrashing, slamming, moshing…and the art. First you smash all the institutions, but then find the institutions have enshrined you. Here is a history of Black Flag told through the mesmerizing and beyond-satirical art of Raymond Pettibon.
Waves of Grain is a two minute strata-cut animation by filmmaker Keith Skretch who planed a block of wood in tiny increments, taking photographs along the way. The final video reveals a repetitive flowing sense of motion as the camera moves effortlessly through the block revealing sinuous curves of wood grain appearing to ripple like water.
Paul Gauguin, the bourgeois-turned-bohemian artist who left France for Tahiti, reveals a darker, almost menacing mythological vision, in contrast to his exploitative picture-postcard fantasy-native Polynesian paintings for which he is known. The exhibition continues at MoMA in New York until June.
Hiding in the back alleys and behind a hoodie, he stencils freehand Gorillas in Pink Masks. An international art sensation makes a film about making a film about a guy who wants to become an international art sensation. The pseudonymous street artist Banksy has turned his well-marketed cultural irreverence into a boom time in the discontent industry.
Francis Bacon, Irish born British painter, whose work recently auctioned for a record $142 million, in his own words in a 1985 documentary for British television, gambling, drinking, and talking about his influences.